Disabled
by IAmTooAddictedToHarryPotter
Summary: The last thing Lily Evans wants to do is go to a special needs school. But that's exactly what she's about to do, at the insistence of her parents. Lily refuses to enjoy herself, but perhaps that's exactly what she's about to do, with the help of her new friends, of course. (Muggle AU) Written by the author who is horrible at descriptions but hopes you'll give the story a chance.
1. Chapter 1

Lily groaned. Today was the day she'd start at the stupid 'special needs' school, which was another way of saying that she had a disability. She rolled onto her stomach, grabbing the prosthetics leaning on the edge of her bed. She leant against the wall as she fastened them onto the stumps where her legs had once been. She could hardly remember what it felt like to have real, proper legs. It had been so long since she'd had the surgery.

"Are you alright in there, Lily? Do you need any help with anything?" Came Mrs Evans' voice from the other side of the door.

"It's been four years, mum! I'm not eleven anymore! I can handle myself, whatever 'Tuney might say." Lily had been very close with her sister before the surgery, but Lily had needed so much attention during her recovery that Petunia had been pushed to the side a bit, and she was still bitter about it.

Lily pulled dark jeans and ratty converse over her prosthetics to somewhat hide them. She put on a blue Cancer Council t-shirt she still fitted from when she'd been undergoing her treatment, and a black, loose fitting hoodie over the top of that. She pulled hair into a messy ponytail.

Once she was satisfied she limp-walked down the hallway, past the wheelchair she'd sworn she'd never use again and into the kitchen.

"Hi, sweetie" said Mrs Evans as Lily hobbled in, "are you excited to be going to your new school today?"

"As excited as one can be when they're about to be shipped away to a boarding school for messed up kids." She glared accusingly at her mother.

"That's not -"  
"Not what? Not true? I don't see what's not true about the fact that you're sending me to a school for kids with disabilities! I'm not disabled! I've been trying to tell you people that since I was eleven and they cut my legs off and now you're telling me that I'm not human enough to go to a normal school anymore! Did you ever stop to think about how I feel? No! There is nothing wrong with me!" Lily was yelling. Mrs Evans was crying. Mr Evans had walked in halfway through Lily's rant and was staring bewildered between the two. Petunia was staying at her boyfriend's place.

"Lily. This has nothing to do with -"

"It has everything to do with that! If I hadn't gotten bone cancer they wouldn't have amputated my legs and then you wouldn't be sending me off to the stupid school and 'Tuney wouldn't hate me and you wouldn't be in debt because of my treatment and everything would be better!"

Lily would have stormed out of the room had her prosthetics allowed her to, but due to 70's technology and a lack of money on her parents behalf, they did not. She sat down heavily.

"Lily -"

"Shut up! I don't want to hear your stupid excuses. Let's just get this over with." She got up and limped back to her room, where she picked up the heavy trunk she wasn't medically allowed to carry, not that she cared.

She limped back up the hallway, a lot slower than before, with the trunk weighing her down.

"You know you're not allowed to carry that, Lily," said Mr Evans, rushing forwards to take it off her.

"No. I want to carry it. I'm not disabled. I don't need your help." Lily felt a bit like a broken record. She was not fragile. She wasn't about to let anyone tell her she was. br /br /"Let's go." She said.

"Eat something first,"

"No, I'm not hungry," she said as her father successfully managed to wrest the trunk from her grip.

"You need to eat, Lily"

"No."

""She's your mother," said Mr Evans.

"And it's my body! Shouldn't I have a say in what I do with what's left of it?"

That shut them up.

"Fine. But you'd better eat when you get there."

"Fine."

"Fine."

Lily tried to take her trunk back, but her father was much faster than her. She fell over trying to catch him.

Both her parents rushed forward to make sure she was okay.

"I'm fine. I'm not helpless, remember?"

Mr Evans helped her up anyway.

Lily cursed her prosthetics as she began the tedious task of getting into the car, sitting sideways on the seat, taking her legs off and swiveling properly into the seat. She didn't put them back on because she figured she'd just have to take them off again when they got there, and also because it would be almost impossible to maneuver them on properly in the tiny, cramped car.

Mrs Evans ran out of the house a moment later, carrying ...

"No way! There is no way in hell I'm taking that thing with me!" Yelled Lily.

"You have to take the wheelchair, Lily," she said tiredly, "it's school rules."

"I don't need it! I won't use it," she insisted.

"I know, sweetie. But they still want you to have it, as a precaution"

Lily rolled her eyes, today was certainly not her day.

When they arrived at the station Lily tried to ignore the stares she received as she refastened her prosthetics.

Mr Evans got her trunk and wheelchair out of the boot of the car. He used a length of rope to tie the wheelchair to the trunk. Lily tried to take the trunk, but he insisted on taking it.

Lily groaned when her dad insisted on coming onto the train and putting her trunk up on the rack for her.

She waved halfheartedly as the train began to move out if the station. No one had joined her in her compartment, but she was okay with that.

pDigging around in her carry-on bag, an old patterned thing almost as ratty as her shoes, she found _The Fault In Our Stars_ (just pretend it was out in the 70's), a book she'd read over and over in her long stays at the hospital, and began to read it for the hundredth time.

pBefore she knew it (although she had made it the whole way through the book twice) they arrived.

An announcement saying that they were all to leave their trunks on the train and that new arrivals were to meet a man named Hagrid and be put into their houses before they went to the welcoming feast. Lily didn't really understand what they meany by 'sorting' and 'houses', having never read the school handbook, but the man, Hagrid, was easy enough to find.

Hagrid was very large, and had a very long stride, which did not bode well for her chances of keeping up. In the end, the only people slower than her were a tiny blonde girl in a wheelchair and her brother, a short, curly haired fellow who seemed to be buzzing with energy.

She limped along as fast as she could, which was still pitifully slow.

For some strange reason they took boats to the school, which just so happened to have been built in an old castle. As if Lily needed to feel any more removed from the normal world. She doubted there would be reception in the castle.

They were greeted by a teacher named Professor McGonagall, who taught English.

She introduced the school (which someone had stupidly named "Hogwarts") and the houses (Hufflepuff, Slytherin, Gryffindor and Ravenclaw). The hoses were based upon why they were there (Hufflepuff for the kids with varying syndromes and autism, Slytherin for the anger management and attention defict kids, Gryffindor for those with 'physical ailments' and Ravenclaw for the kids with mental disorders.).

Lily zoned out as the names and houses were called, she already knew where she would end up.

They were lead into the hall and directed to their tables. A loud voice said " Welcome to Gryffindor, house of all the poor little kidlets with 'physical ailments'!" The boy who had said it had shoulder-length black hair, a leather jacket, tight black jeans and mischievous blue eyes.

Lily limped over to the table, focusing on not falling on her face, which, of course meant she did just that.

The boy sitting across from the one with the leather jacket stood up quickly, kneeling down next to her. He was tall, with glasses perched crookedly on his nose and impossibly messy black hair.

"I'm fine." Said Lily, turning redder than her hair, "just prosthetics, you know?" She was fairly sure he didn't know. He nodded. He took her hands and helped her up.

"Thanks," she muttered, brushing herself off. He smiled and gave her a double thumbs up, before taking his seat and signing something to his friend in the leather jacket, who laughed.

Lily took her seat at the far end of the table, where the least people were sitting.

After the headmaster gave his speech the feast began. Lily put a tiny portion of food onto her plate, but she really wasn't hungry. She was still burning with humiliation. Could she have possibly made a worse first impression?

She was glad when the feast ended and the heads-of-house lead their respective houses out of the hall. Before they went to the dormitories they grabbed their trunks, although Professor McGonagall, head of Gryffindor, had the boy wearing the leather jacket, carry hers as well as his own. Lily had tried to convince him she was capable of carrying it herself, but he just said, "if McGonagall said you can't do it, you can't do it,"

Lily was lucky enough to get a room to herself. The first thing she did was stash the wheelchair at the back of the top shelf of the bathroom cupboard, where she figured she could forget about it.

_

 **Author's Note:** Hi, I hope you enjoyed reading this (despite the fact that I wrote it up on my phone, and my phone typing is quite frankly horrific). I got the idea after I read _The Fault In Our Stars_ for the first time yesterday. Please review and I'll reply in the next chapter I publish! Thanks for reading!

P.S. This is an updated version of this chapter because for some reason the first time I posted it it put numbers and stuff around the sentenced and messed everything up (special thanks to Radio Free Death who pointed it out to me). If any of you find any more problems please tell me in a review!


	2. Chapter 2

When they all reached the common room Professor McGonagall had all the returning students sit down on the various couches and armchairs scattered around the room, the new students stood awkwardly near the door.

"Welcome back to another year at Hogwarts," said Professor McGonagall primly, "Now, I'm going to buddy our newcomers up with some of you who have been here longer so that nobody gets lost. Your house is like your family and I expect you to treat it as such."

She went through a list of new students, pairing them up with others their age until finally she reached Lily, who was the second eldest of the newcomers.

"Lets see ..." McGonagall scanned the groups of people in the room over the top of her spectacles, "yes, Miss McKinnon, if you could look after Miss Evans here."

A girl jumped up, "Have my ears deceived me or have all my dreams finally come true? There is _finally_ another Gryffindor girl my age! I wasn't sure if I could live with only the company of those silly boys for another whole year!" she announced dramatically. Her dark hair was pulled up into an immaculate ponytail that didn't quite match the mischevious glint in her dark eyes.

She marched up to the front of the room and grabbed Lily's wrist, leading her over to a couch already occupied by four boys. She dropped herself lazily onto the lap of the plump blond boy, who looked rather uncomfortable at the intrusion of his personal space, "You can sit on James if you want," she invited.

"Uhh … no, I think I'm alright, thanks." said Lily, although her legs (what was left of them) were getting quite sore.

The boy who had helped her up earlier got out of his seat and gestured for her to sit down.

"No! You don't have to give up your seat for me! I'm okay, really." she protested. The boy smiled and gave her a light push on her shoulder, "Oh, alright. Fine." she huffed, dropping down into the recently vacated seat. She tried to withhold her sigh of relief as she released the pressure from her legs. "Thank you,"

"Anyway," said the girl, "I'm Marlene McKinnon, who're you?"

"I'm Lily. Lily Evans, I mean," said Lily awkwardly. The boy who had given up his seat sat down easily on the floor.

"I'm Peter Pettigrew," said the boy Marlene was sitting on.

"Are you and Marlene -" Lily started, looking between the two of them.

Marlene laughed, "No! I'm not going out with Petey! I do this to everyone." she said, by way of explanation.

"Oh," said Lily, embarrassed.

"Hi, I'm Remus Lupin," said a voice softly. The voice belonged to a skinny boy with sandy-hair, soft brown eyes and a large knit sweater.

"It's nice to meet you, Remus," said Lily politely.

"I'm Sirius!" said the boy next to Lily, obnoxiously loud. She recognised him as the boy who had taken her trunk.

Lily nodded and turned to face the boy on the floor. He signed something to her.

Lily's face went red.

"I am so sorry," she said her hands over her mouth, "I don't know sign language."

"You're gonna have to speak without your hands covering your mouth, sweetie, or else I won't be able to read your lips," said Marlene.

"Huh?"

"I'm deaf, ever heard of it?"

Lily nodded dumbly. She felt a tap on her knee and turned to face the boy. He scribbled something in a notebook he'd fished out of his bag. He held it up for Lily to see.

 **Hi, I'm James Potter** , he'd written.

"It's nice to meet you, James, and I'm so, so sorry about not knowing sign language," she apologised again.

 **It's fine, really.** He scribbled, **I'll bet you've never needed to know sign language before, so what's the point in learning something you thought you'd never use?**

Lily shrugged, "Yeah, but I feel really silly, coming to a place like this without thinking to learn sign language."

 **You'll pick it up,** James smiled at her, **I'll teach you.**

"Thanks," Lily felt like a broken record, "God, I feel useless, I've been here less than two hours and you've already done three things for me. All I've done you is a disservice," she chuckled lightly.

"I'm sure you'll be able to make it up to him in future," said Sirius, grinning evilly.

"What're you planning?" asked Remus suspiciously.

Sirius was about to reply when Professor McGonagall announced that it was time to head off to bed.

"C'mon!" said Marlene excitedly, "I'll finally have a roommate!" she grabbed Lily by the hand and dragged her off the couch, "We'll see you boys tomorrow."

A/N - I'm sorry this chapter is much shorter than the last one but I hope you enjoyed it all the same. If you were confused, James' writing is in **bold** , when Lily finally works it out his signs will be in _italics_. Thanks for reading and reviewing (especially Fea just me, your review is what helped me keep writing this story: this is the second version of this chapter because I didn't like the first and I generally don't enjoy re-writing chapters).


	3. Chapter 3

James was woken forcefully by Marlene when she traipsed around the boys dormitory, blowing loud, out of tune notes into their ears from Peter's trumpet. The only person who didn't wake up was Sirius, who slept without his hearing aids in.

James felt around on his bedside for his glasses, shoving them on his face. Marlene stuck her head out of the dormitory's door.

"Honestly, Lily, how long does it take you to climb a set of stairs? Hurry up!"

A series of unintelligible grumbling from the stairs told James that Lily, too had been woken up.

James stood up and yanked the pillow out from under Sirius' head, effectively waking him up. He sat up groggily and grabbed his hearing aids from his bedside table and put them in his ears, fiddling with the dials for a moment.

"You stole my trumpet AGAIN? Seriously, Marlene?" Said Peter. Marlene grinned at him and tossed the trumpet in his direction.

"Actually, she stole your trumpet Marlenously, not Siriusly, Petey," said Sirius.

Peter rolled his eyes at the two of them.

"Exactly," said Marlene matter-of-factly, "I try not to do things Siriusly - that's Sirius' job!"

It was when Lily finally made it to the room that Remus decided to speak up.

"Well, If you want us to hurry up and get ready then you'll have to leave the room,"

"Seriously?!" Exclaimed Lily.

"What was that about me?"

"C'mon Lily, let the silly boys get dressed," she grabbed Lily's arm on her way out the door and dragged her down the stairs.

They sat down on a large couch to await the boys.

"Right, so, while we're waiting I may as well tell you a bit about the bunch of humanoid catastrophes upstairs, eh?" Said Marlene. Lily nodded absentmindedly.

"So there's Petey. He's got tourettes syndrome - you might have noticed how he scrunches up his face? That's his tic at the moment." Marlene thought for a moment, "his favourite thing to do is eat, specifically cheese. James and Sirius call him Wormtail because apparently if he were an animal he'd be a rat,"

Lily nodded.

"Next - Remus. He got the short stick of all short sticks when it came to the genetic pool. He's got a wide variety if joint, muscle and bone disorders that all seem to be bad on the same day. His doctors actually nicknamed his condition 'lycanthropy' because of that. Of course Sirius and James thought that was hilarious and so decided to call him Moony."

"So ... Moony and Wormtail, huh? Do James and Sirius have dumb nicknames too?"

"Sure do, but I'm getting there, you'll have to be patient. Let's see ... Sirius. He's something like three-quaurters deaf - you saw his hearing aids - and he's blind in his right eye. His dumb nickname is Padfoot, but the story as to why seems to change every time. My theory is that he and James just came up with the dumbest nicknames for each other that they could think of. Last is James. He's mute and his eyesight is so bad that if you take his glasses he may as well be blind. It's pretty funny, actually. His dumb nickname is Prongs. He thinks it's majestic, but it just reminds me of a fork."

"Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs ... Interesting." Mused Lily, "Have they given you a nickname?"

Marlene snorted, "they tried."

"What did who try?" Asked Sirius, climbing over the back of the couch and squeezing himself between the two girls.

"Nothing," said Marlene cheerily.

"Sureeeee," he replied. Lily felt the cushion sink on her other side.

"Hi, James." She said awkwardly, turning to look at his face.

James lifted his hands to reply before remembering that she couldn't understand it. Lily flushed when she noticed the gesture. He smiled to show her it was okay and pulled a small notebook and a pen from his pocket. He opened the book and placed it on his knee, scribbling **Morning, Evans. Sleep well?**

"I think you'll find my name is 'Lily' not 'Evans', Potter, but I slept okay, how about you?"

 **Fine. But if I have to call you Lily then you have to call me James, Evans.**

"Why did you even decide to start calling me Evans anyway?"

James shrugged.

"Anyway," said Sirius, interrupting the conversation, "We'd better head down to breakfast. Accompany me, ladies?" He linked his arms into Marlene's and Lily's, standing up abruptly.

Using Sirius as an anchor, Lily pulled herself into a standing position. James stood up beside her.

 _I'm going to check on Remus and Pete. I'll be right back._ He signed to Sirius, who nodded to show that he had seen. James took the stairs two at a time. When he got to the dormitory Peter had already packed all his things for the first few lessons and Remus was sitting on his bed, leaning on the wall. He flinched slightly when James sat down next to him.

 _You okay?_

"Yeah. I'm fine."

 _No you're not. What's the matter?_

"Nothing, James. I'm fine."

 _I don't believe you. Do you need me to help with anything?_

"No. It's just … I don't want to be confined to my stupid wheelchair. Not on the first day of school."

 _You'd rather be in the wheelchair than in the hospital wing._

Remus shifted slightly, "Yeah. You're right, but I'd rather not be in either."

 _Unfortunately, that's not an option. Now, what do you need help with? If we don't hurry we'll miss breakfast._

Remus flushed, he hated it when people had to do things for him. James stood up. He fished a clean uniform out of Remus' trunk and laid it out on his bed.

 _I'll get your things, you get dressed._ He walked over to the dormitory's bookshelf, which was so stacked with Remus' books there was hardly room for anyone else's. While collecting Remus' books he spotted a thick volume about sign language which had not been touched in years. He wedged the book out from between two even larger books on the over stacked shelf and put it into his own bag.

Once he had collected all of the books, James pulled the wheelchair our from underneath Remus' bed and unfolded it, setting it up with the air of someone who had done this many times before.

When Remus was dressed James rolled the chair up to his bed so that he could get on. Peter had left the room shortly after James had entered it and when they exited the dormitory it became clear that everyone else had left.

"I hate stairs." said Remus as James tried to work out how to get Remus down the stairs, as it was usually a two person job.

 _I'll have to do it in two trips._ He signed. _I'm going to pick you up._ After hanging out with Sirius – who had issues with being touched – for so many years, James had quickly formed the habit of warning someone before touching them.

He picked up Remus as slowly and gently as he could, although he could see the pain clear as day on his friend's face. He descended the stairs a lot slower than he had gone up them earlier, carefully putting Remus down on a nearby armchair before going back for the wheelchair and helping Remus back into it.

Because Hogwarts had so many staircases, and the school had neglected to install wheelchair ramps, that meant that they had to repeat that little routine fourteen times before reaching the Great Hall, by which point both boys were utterly exhausted and breakfast was almost over.

Sirius jumped up and ran over to them as soon as they made it into the hall, apologizing profusely for abandoning them as both James and Remus tried to assure him that it was completely alright.

James practically collapsed into his seat when they reached the table.

A/N - Hi! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! If there was anything wrong with this chapter or any of the other chapters that you'd like fixed, any suggestions for something you would like to see at some point in the story, any additional characters you'd like to see (or if you want to create a side character that I could include, that would be awesome) feel free to tell me in a review (or a PM if you're not comfortable commenting publicly). I'd also like to thank all of you who have reviewed, favourited and followed already, you guys make me smile. Thanks for reading and reviewing! Bye!


	4. Chapter 4

Professor McGonagall handed out timetables to all the students who hadn't gotten theirs the previous day. Each student's timetable was slightly different, depending on their individual needs; some of them had counselling, some of them had fewer lessons, depending on what they could handle, some of them had regular meetings with Madam Pomfrey and some of them had therapy sessions (speech therapy, rehab etc.).

James looked down at his timetable, confused. He double checked he had the right one before nudging Sirius on the shoulder and pointing towards the sheet of paper.

 _Why do I have speech therapy?_ he signed, perplexed. Sirius peeked over his shoulder onto the paper and, sure enough, he had speech therapy scheduled three times a week. Sirius shrugged.

"They probably just made a mistake when they made the timetables," he said reasonably, "you can go talk to McGonagall about it later,"

 _You're right,_ replied James, _can you imagine me trying to do speech therapy, though?_ He cracked a grin.

"I'm sure you'd be wonderful, Prongsie," Sirius grinned back.

Marlene snatched James' timetable out of his hands, looking through it for herself.

"You weren't lying," she said, impressed, "you do realise that, in order to speak you need to be able to produce sound from your mouth?"

James nodded, _why do you think I've never done it before?_

Lily, who was entirely lost in that conversation, started to talk to Remus and Peter about the teachers and classes. Apparently half the school was under the impression that the Maths position was cursed, because no teacher seemed to last more than a year, but Remus figured it was just because Math was easily the most hated subject and almost nobody made an effort in the class, which didn't encourage the teachers to continue.

She also learned that the houses had some lessons with the other houses and some without, depending on the amount of students each teacher could handle at one time, and that the school's sport was basketball, and that each house made a team. The teams would play each other and whichever team won would go on to play against other schools, although Hogwarts had a reputation for not being very good. James, Sirius and Marlene were all on Gryffindor's team last year, and James was the captain. Tryouts would be in the next couple of weeks.

"Well, I won't be trying out," said Lily, when Remus had finished explaining.

"Me neither, Sirius keeps trying to convince me to, though," said Remus, shaking his head.

"What about you Peter?" asked Lily, trying to drag the quiet boy into the conversation.

"I… I might try out. Usually -tic- do, but I never -tic- make the team,"

"Oh, well … at least you try." said Lily, in an attempt to be optimistic.

"What about the other teachers, then?" asked Lily, diverting the conversation back to lessons.

"Well, there's McGonagall -you've already met her- she teaches English. She's quite strict but she's very good at what she does. We've got Slughorn -he teaches Science- get on his good side and you'll have no problem acing the class. Flitwick teaches Music, not one of the best subjects, but he's fair. Binns teaches History, he's a bore but his classes are a good chance to catch up on missed sleep. Sprout teaches Home Economics and she's perhaps the nicest teacher at the school. Now – who've I missed?"

Lily looked down at her timetable for a second before saying, "art."

"Trelawney. She's crazy. Believes in using glass balls to tell the future and all of those ridiculous superstitions," Remus snorted, "she absolutely adores James though, for unknown reasons."

"Who adores James?" asked Sirius, butting into the conversation.

"Trelawney."

"Ah, yes, Trelawney! What was it she said last year?" he put on a breathy, high pitched voice, "'Oh, dear James, I shall miss you! You should write to me over the -'" He stopped when James hit him on the arm.

Everyone turned to look at him. James hid his flushed, pink face in his hands.

Lily glanced at the watch on Remus' wrist, "We should probably go if we want to make it to class on time. We've got History first,"

With Sirius helping too, the process of getting Remus up the stairs went much more smoothly. Lily would have lagged behind if it weren't for Marlene dragging her along.

History was incredibly boring. Binns turned out to be even more dull than Remus had said, something that wasn't aided by her general dislike of the subject.

The only reason Lily didn't fall asleep was because she was looking through the book James had given her while they were waiting for Professor Binns to arrive. The book was a slightly battered and very thick volume titled _The Complete Guide To British Sign Language For Dummies_ although someone had crossed out the word 'Dummies' and written 'Beginners' underneath with a black marker.

The first half contained copious amounts of information on the history of sign language and how sign language changed depending on the person using it and other such topics, and the second half contained the signs. Someone had gone through the book, highlighting certain parts and writing little notes in the borders and anywhere else they could fit it, and Lily found that quite helpful, because it meant that she didn't have to go and look up the answers to any questions she had, as they were quite often answered in the scribbled notes.

Lily was still immersed in the book when the class ended forty-five minutes later.

They had English after followed by lunch. Lily practised some of the signs at lunch, with Sirius laughing and correcting her the whole time.

By the time they headed off to art she could form a couple of basic sentences, but understanding them was a lot harder, which was frustrating.

"Hello," said a misty voice, "I am Professor Trelawney, if you haven't met me yet. I teach art here at Hogwarts School for Special Needs Children."

Trelawney took the roll before continuing.

"This semester we will be looking at portraits and realistic art. Before we star the topic I would like to see where you are at currently. If you could pull out your Art Diaries I would like you to draw the person next to you as best as you can. You have until the end of the lesson."

Lily looked slowly at James, who was sitting next to her, before pulling out her art book and opening it to the first page. She got a pencil out of her pencil case and sharpened it quickly before attempting to draft out the shape of James' face, glancing back up at him every few seconds. James seemed to be entirely immersed in his drawing, only looking up occasionally to check something before going back to the drawing.

When the hour was up everyone showed each other their drawings. Remus and Peter's renderings of each other were alright and Sirius and Marlene had clearly had a war to see who could make the other look the stupidest. Lily felt horrible when she saw the drawing james had done of her, not because it was bad, because it was quite the opposite, but because of how horrible _her_ picture looked. James' drawing was perfect. He'd drawn Lily in a style that was both realistic and his own, original style. The Lily pictured in it was laughing at something and she had a beautiful flower – a lily – tucked behind her ear.

Lily looked up at James, speechless. His face went pink and he buried his free hand in his hair. He had a smudge of pencil on his nose.

"Wow." said Lily breathlessly, "It's so perfect."

James flushed even darker, grinning crookedly at her. Lily looked back at her own drawing. Everything about it was wrong, it hardly even looked like a person.

"I am so sorry for my drawing," apologised Lily, "drawing isn't one of my strong points."

James shrugged. Sirius pulled his art book out of his hands, looking at it with a bemused expression before handing it back.

"And James Potter outshines everyone once again,"

Trelawney came around the room, commenting on everyone's art. She struggled to find something positive about Lily's drawing, but went on for about a full ten minutes about how perfect James' drawing was.

"Sometimes," said Sirius to James, when Trelawney was out of earshot, "you have to not be the best, you do know that, right? Besides, if you get any better I think Trelawney might actually explode."

A/N- Hi. I hope you enjoyed this chapter and sorry for the long wait between chapters. Please review and tell me if there is something I should change/add. By the way, I still need some side characters so if you wanted to create a character I could include that would be fantastic (I'll need name/age/gender/house/why they're at the school/personality/looks and their relationship with the Marauders & co) Thanks!


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